So in 2005, the food pyramid got a make-over. The USDA called the MyPyramid “deliberately simple”—but the graphic was so sleek it contained almost no information. The stripes were meant to represent different food groups, with the width of each band showing its proportional share of a healthy diet. But as nothing edible was actually pictured, it was hard to figure out what was what (meat is purple? huh?). “I call it foodless and useless," nutrition and public health researcher Marion Nestle, told the Los Angeles Times.

The only intuitive part of the new guide was the figure climbing stairs up the side: a nod to physical activity as part of a healthy lifestyle.